In idling, the motor's running, but you're letting your mind take in anything. Things pop into it. Those are the gifts of subterranean conscious.
Mortimer AdlerRead
You have to allow a certain amount of time in which you are doing nothing in order to have things occur to you, to let your mind think.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Taking time for rest and reflection is essential for creativity and thought.
Mortimer Adler highlights the importance of giving oneself space and time to think, suggesting that periods of inactivity can facilitate creativity and allow new ideas to emerge. Without moments of stillness, our minds may become cluttered, hindering the process of thinking deeply and effectively.
Themes
ThinkingCreativityRestReflectionMindfulness
In practice
Example use cases
You might use this quote during a workshop on creativity to emphasize the importance of downtime.
More from Mortimer Adler
All quotes βThe only standard we have for judging all of our social, economic, and political institutions and arrangements as just or unjust, as good or bad, as better or worse, derives from our conception of the good life for man on earth, and from our conviction that, given certain external conditions, it is possible for men to make good lives for themselves by their own efforts.
Mortimer AdlerRead
A good book can teach you about the world and about yourself. You learn more than how to read better; you also learn more about life. You become wiser.
Mortimer AdlerRead
If you are reading in order to become a better reader, you cannot read just any book or article. You will not improve as a reader if all you read are books that are well within your capacity. You must tackle books that are beyond you, or, as we have said, books that are over your head. Only books of that sort will make you stretch your mind. And unless you stretch, you will not learn.
Mortimer AdlerRead
In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but how many can get through to you.
Mortimer AdlerRead
If your friend wishes to read your 'Plutarch's Lives,' 'Shakespeare,' or 'The Federalist Papers,' tell him gently but firmly, to buy a copy. You will lend him your car or your coat - but your books are as much a part of you as your head or your heart.
Mortimer AdlerRead
Similar quotes
He who hopes in God trusts God, Whom he never sees, to bring him to the possession of things that are beyond imagination.
Thomas MertonRead
Consequence is no coincidence.
Lauryn HillRead
People say that practicing Zen is difficult, but there is a misunderstanding as to why. It is not difficult because it is hard to sit in the cross- legged position, or to attain enlightenment. It is difficult because it is hard to keep our mind pure and our practice pure in its fundamental sense.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.
Bertrand RussellRead
The desire to know is natural to good men.
Leonardo Da VinciRead
Learning to be silent is far more difficult and far more important than learning to recite prayers.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I Of ConstantinopleRead